Eggshells, Obama and Recycled Envelope Notes
by magic-pages
Summary: Wilson passes out drunk on House's couch on election night. House is confused about Wilson's attempts to make things 'normal' between them. House POV.


The air feels looped-up and tense, like Christmas, as I place my glass in the sink and darken the small, glowing light of the stereo, still paused on track eleven. The curtains are closed but their seams don't quite meet on the rod and a long, tangled piece of light shoots across the hardwood floor to illuminate… a foot?

I rub bits of sleep from the corners of my eyes and visually follow the sock, up a grey-pleated leg, and a rumpled, half-untucked shirt where I recognize the coarse brick-brown of the back of Wilson's head. His left cheek is smunched up against the padded arm of the couch and his pink hands are lying down by his sides, palm-facing up almost in a gesture of supplication. His posture is certainly a non-verbal mating call to women everywhere, but I look kind of like a retiree in my plaid pants. His mouth is as open as a crocodile's, and emits small, swirling breaths.

There are three hollow Heineken bottles on the coffee table, the third resting on its belly, a small puddle lying beside it. I'm confused, and a little bit impressed, since we didn't open anything last night, at his insistence that watching the election drunk wasn't a good plan. It was a lame argument, but I didn't push it, since this is the first time that he has actually come and spent unstructured time at my place, not counting previous get-togethers themed around pizza or bowling, at their respective locations.

They're baby steps, and I don't trust myself to say something inebriated that will send him packing again.

We had stuck through on CNN until they announced that Obama had basically won, then we broke out the Doritos, and Wilson shot out a lewd comment about Sarah Palin's ass during the McCain address, jumpstarting a ridiculous storyline about her as Lara Croft who preaches to the unsaved and gives them free guns. My stomach muscles, slightly buried, were ripping with laughter, and Wilson's face had turned a hothouse-tomato red as it got less plausible and more like a rogue episode of _Girls Gone Wild._ Then I turned on Die Hard 3, in the middle of which Wilson nodded off, breathing loudly and evenly. I took that as a cue that the evening was over. I hesitantly flicked him awake, not entirely uncomfortable with the idea of him falling asleep on my couch, but he had already muttered earlier that he had an early procedure tomorrow.

He mumbled something to the effect of "Ok, gotta go", and I fell into bed, not even listening for the soft smack of the door. I felt slightly satisfied that this evening was the most relaxed we had spent together since he'd decided that 'nothing had changed' that afternoon, resting his shoulder against the doorway of his office. It had, though.

Pizza was pizza and bowling was bowling, two activities that we used to do quite regularly. But we mostly focused on the task at hand, and I would occasionally shoot out a witty comment and he would half-smile and sigh, or he would recycle conversation about some of his colleagues. It had felt right, but… too right. Too contrived. This evening hadn't, not like every other get-together, where it seemed like he was adding another piece of this colourful Lego structure he seemed to be perspiring to build around himself, visibly trying to convince himself of the stability of 'us.' It felt like too much work, to me, anyways.

Too much change with Wilson sucks, but so does already knowing what's exactly going on because he already has it all planned out beforehand.

So I felt a little twinge of satisfaction at the sight of him unconscious on my couch.

I poke his shirted side with my cane, curious about the impromptu booze-guzzling. He doesn't move. Unsatisfied, I crumple my body down to cushion height with a great deal of difficulty and cat-whisper, "Obama is coming to change you, Wilson." His whole body jerks and one of his dark eyes spring open, which, I now notice, has a residue of brown tears caked at its corner.

"Mmph", he says, irritated. A shaky sigh and then a smooth, safe sleep breath. I wrap my palm around my right thigh to steady it as I stand up, then open the cupboard in the kitchen to find the fern-green military flashlight that my father gave me as a medical school graduation gift. I'm at loss as to why I kept it, as there weren't even any sort of words attached to its giving. I had found it on my bed when I came home after graduation at my mother's insistence. "Home" to lemon squares and forced conversation, a visit where my father only made himself known in his disapproval that I graduated top of my class, and so "must have not had any social life."

This particular flashlight had a piece on the bottom that you could screw off, to reveal red and clear rippled plastic pieces meant to fit on the front of the flashlight for different effects. I lean over his face with the light and click it on, carefully prying open his lids and shining it directly into his eyes. He awakes immediately and smacks the source of the brightness, which happens to be my hand.

"You have to wake up sometime," I mutter.

He swats my hand and yawns.

"Piss off, House," he croaks.

'Wow, I think Jimmy woke up on the wrong side of the …er… couch. '

He squints at his watch and clears his throat.

"It is 3:30 am, you know. Most people are asleep."

'Yeah, it is 3:30, and you've polished off three beers, which, for you, is the equivalent of an entire keg. No wonder you're in such a stupor. The cane-poking in your ticklish spot didn't even work." I look at him quizzically.

"Three isn't that much," he scoffs. "Besides, how do you even know about my ticklish spot? I can't think of a conversation where it came up."

'Kutner and 13 found your sex tapes in Amber's apartment. They took notes for me, for future reference."

I've pulled a dangerous card, but I figure that it's only through uncomfortable prodding that I can figure out the reason for his impulsiveness. Besides, he seems comfortable enough using Amber's name in order to blackmail me, so this can't be much worse.

He struggles to regain control.

"You---what?"

'I didn't actually watch it,' I say. 'They thought it might be diagnostically relevant.'

He is sitting up now, wobbling slightly, but rubbing his palms against his slacks, which I notice, look a little sticky. His collar also has splashes of off-colour liquid.

"They—shouldn't have looked at those at all. That wasn't what they were there to do."

'Well, you can't blame two organisms with average sexual impulses from being curious. Myself, I was kind of intrigued. I didn't know she was into that kind of stuff. Do you have the URL?'

He is fully awake now and his face is reddening. I can't tell whether he's really pissed off or perversely amused. There's little chance that it's the latter, but I never know how Wilson is going to react these days. He looks the same, except for maybe a few occasional changes in hair part, but I'm watching every reaction, certain that someone's going to try to fit the wrong piece of Lego onto his tower. Maybe it'll be a two-year old fond of ramming them on, and this will be one that doesn't fit. All of the other colourful pieces will crack up and fall. And he'll suffer.

And right now he has no witty, hot-blooded response.

"I-"

His voice snaps and he sighs heavily. I don't know where I want to go with this either. I guess I've beaten him already in the taboo department. It's like I've dressed up as a Nazi for Halloween, complete with a bright red swastika emblazoned on my chest. It's not funny. Amber doesn't seem like something or someone that we can joke about yet or maybe ever. But I still want to know why he's still here.

'You were crying,' I note. 'Booze doesn't make you cry. It makes you giggly like a teenage girl at prom. It must have been something else.'

He rubs the corners of his eyes, picking sleep out and ignoring my question.

I try again.

"Forget the crying, why are you even here?"

"I was tired, and your couch happened to be close."

"That's not a good reason. "

"It always was before."

"Well, things are, well, different now. You act different."

"Are they? Do I? I thought that the reason you were so desperate to get me to come back was to keep things the same. I may be completely off-centre, but you crave the familiarity." His cheeks are flushed and his brow is peaked.

"I didn't tell you to come back. I didn't ask for you to drug me and drive me to Pennsylvania. You did that on your own. I –I was still tying up my shoelaces when you were gone."

I hadn't been, not really. I just left them tied up all the time.

He sputters. "If you're so capable of surviving without me, then what did your impromptu visits to my new apartment mean? And the private investigator, where did he fit? What about the $300,000 that you racked up in bills to the hospital? House, your need for me to come back to this hospital, and, well… you, was like- I don't know", he gestures wildly, "some sort of big ad in the paper."

"Why did you come back at all?" I'm quiet.

He shifts his weight on the couch and kneads his palms together.

" You were impossible to ignore. "

"It's more than that". My voice is climbing in volume too. "You wanted to come back. Otherwise you wouldn't put so much effort into making everything perfectly normal again."

My leg is itching and I want to sit down, but I'm too close to my answer to make any sudden moves.

Eyeing a possible space to sit, I notice a small slip of white poking out from his right pocket.

"What's that?" I point at it, crude like a small child at the zoo.

He catches my eye and hastily shoves it deeper in.

"It's an old memo. Why does it matter?"

"You're trying to hide it. " I wait until his hand reunites with the other, until they clasp together like two puzzle pieces, and in a bold move, move forward and yank it out of his dress pants.

He frantically smacks my hand and tries to pull it back, but it is securely curled in my fist and I hold it up in some sort of sign of twisted victory. But when I flatten it out against my palm and squint, it's my turn to have my eyes smart. I feel like I might be sick.

_Sorry I'm not here, went to pick up House. 3 A_

The note is written in blocky black script, probably a recycled envelope pulled from the coffee table. The edges of the paper are crumbly and soft from rubbing, and the last initial and its hyphen are blotchy and difficult to make out.

"What the hell?" He stomps his sock foot on the hardwood like a toddler, but it's a weak try, and I almost don't blame him. My eyes shouldn't be pricking, but they are. I'm staring at him, his toes curled and his fingers massaging the edges of his hairline, eyes focused on the window.

The note is sitting in my hand. I'm going to throw up all over it. I pretended that Amber had nothing to do with this, that she didn't taint his ache for normalcy. I've used her in jokes, brought her up when I needed leverage, but I didn't want to probe into the idea that maybe, I'm the only really secure thing that he can count on.

Maybe none of my sex partners have died. And maybe this is the most thinking I've allowed myself to do in a long time.

"You came back because you knew that I'd be there", I say softly.

He raises his head and sort of squints at me.

"Well, that sure sounds good for you, doesn't it? Gregory House, the stalwart who is always there for his friends. It also makes me sound really desperate."

This is kind of weird for him, to be self-deprecating.

"Friend", I correct him, putting extra emphasis on the singular. "You're admitting that YOU'RE needy? I don't know how many bots I'll have to blow up before I can process that."

"Why are you acting so understanding? Why are you coming to revelations about US so easily?"

"Why the fuck do I always have to have some other motive?"

"Because it's how you… work."

"Well maybe Jimmy found a new function in the game system."

I take the note and fold the soft paper, three times, hamburger style. I put it back on the couch seat beside him. He picks it up, turns the rectangle over and over in his hand.

"She never used block printing. Her writing was always full of curlicues and flowing lines. She must have known that something was going to happen when the she wrote it."

"Wilson, that's ridiculous. "

"I know."

He looks so sad, so pathetic, in the same beer-stained shirt that it seems like he's been wearing forever, and I can't think of any more words, so I reach out and stroke his cheek. It isn't that soft. He leans into my hand in response, and it feels so instinctive, this touching and subsequent affection, that I wonder why I haven't bothered with it before.

He reaches out and grabs my belt loop, and my hand stills. I don't know if this was the way I was heading for. But he continues, pulling me towards him until I'm leaning over him, a wide, spilling shadow across his chest, bracing my hands against the back of the leather couch. His eyes are dark and wet as he pulls my head down to his for a kiss. Suddenly I don't care what direction this is going in, because it's Wilson, and his tongue is in my mouth.

"God", I say to no existing deity as a sort of tribute.

He notices my neck straining, so he grabs my waist until I'm on top of him in a mess of three heavy limbs and one searing in pain from the awkward position. Our faces are mashed together, until he steadies them, touching my lips again with his own, and after a single long breath, his body is beating, like the thick muscle in his chest, with alarming regularity, and wetness is coming down his cheeks. The pain tastes salty on my lips and I can hear it bubbling in his nose.

It's strange, feeling him cry so close to me, and I wonder if I've ever seen him in tears before. This thought is so strange that I don't really want to examine it up close. So I'm almost glad when he pushes my shoulders down to his pants, hands shaking as he loosens his belt and rips the zipper down. This isn't familiar territory for me, but it is for Wilson, and it means that I don't have to look at his face as he pulls his cock out of the slit in his briefs, offering it to me, body racking with sobs.

Now I'm confronted with the most vulnerable, and yet most impersonal part of James Wilson, which has seen so many lips on it, but it's warm as I grasp it, and his fingers have found their way to the soft skin behind my earlobe.

"Please," he says.

I oblige, tasting the thickness of him in my mouth, hearing his breaths speed up, and feeling incredibly turned on. I'm nowhere close to being the only one to have sucked him like this, but this episode isn't on camera, he would never want it to be. Because if it's filmed, there would have to be an end to the story at some point, and I don't want that either.

He slides through my lips, hard and slippery now, and he's still sniffing as he moans. He doesn't know what to do with his hands; they rove anxiously up and down his slacks, and then clutch at the fabric of my shoulder blades. I remind myself that his anatomy mirrors my own, and I run my tongue across the slit in his penis to calm him, which releases a shuddering hiss through his now-unstuffed nose. My own erection is pushing against the thick crotch of my jeans, but I'm not feeling selfish tonight, so I ignore it for the most part. Besides, he isn't crying anymore.

I press my mouth down him all the way to my throat. I hear the soft pop of a button, and look up to see his hand roving around in the vicinity of his nipple. His head is pushed back, his face contorted and the bow of his mouth is wide open.

"Fuuuckk", he says.

I like what this is doing to him, but I want to kiss him again. So my mouth takes a detour to his neck, while the hand stays, yanking him hard. He joins me, settling his fingers in between mine. The effect is intensified, making his hips arch, and my tongue dawdles in the same spot behind his ear that he targeted on me earlier. The skin is thin and hot, and I relish it as he squirms.

He's so close; little electric trembles are racking his body like the atmosphere before a rain, and he pulls my face up to his with a sense of finality as his body jerks and quivers and he spills hotly over our conjoined hands.

Obama promised change, and he brought some already, with only 6 hours in office. The war in Iraq seems a much simpler issue now, with Wilson breathing into my chest. Neither of us needs to say anything about it, we both know what the answer is.


End file.
